Curled toes/club foot on day 5, hatching/baby question

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flg8r

flg8r

Chirping
6 Years
Jul 30, 2013
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I had a baby who I didn't think was going to make it, spent nearly 48 hours in the egg after pipping. He's alive and kicking believe it or not. Two questions.

1. I believe my turner is to blame. It looked like I had 4 babies (out of 20) who zipped in the wrong place. The "turner" that I have just rolls the tray around, they can sometimes end up pointy end up and I'm pretty sure that has something to do with them being turned in the egg wrong. Does this seem like a reasonable guess? I want to try this incubator one more time but hand turn them. I had nearly 100% in another incubator (borrowed) hand turning, then about 30% in this with the autoturner, then about 75% this time (I tried to check to put them pointy side down and put i a lot less so they could roll better) but the number of pip-then-dead is bugging me a lot.

2. Rocky, the fighter, came out with very little neck strength. He was constantly tipped forward and his legs were awkwardly curled under him. I took him to food and water hourly and he got stronger. When he got stronger and could get off the ground a little, about 24 hours, his legs splayed. I put a band-aid on him and it fixed it nicely so I took it off yesterday. He is standing more upright than I thought possible. (I know most of you are thinking at this point I should have culled him but he made it out of the freaking egg, never stopped trying, I couldn't do it.) But one entire foot is turned under him, like club foot.

I have the foot band-aided as straight as possible now. I gave it half a day to see if it straightened as he learned to walk but it didn't. Is there still a chance it could be fixed or is it a small window and it's set now? He gets around fine for now but I think I will have to always watch him/her carefully if it stays like this. It seems like it would be very easy to break it and s/he will probably never be in the main coop.

I'm going to try to load a photo off my phone in the next post!
 
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His club foot is not red, it's from the flash or red bulb. Both feet looks healthy, the one is just turned.
 
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You should be fine. Mine also had big incubation problems and one had feet with severe deformities (one side the toes were pointed at his belly and he hobbled on the joint). Straight away (few hours after being I n brooder) I strapped shoes on him but didnt want to spend too long and stress him or expose to drafts. Day 3 when I took shoes off one foot looked a bit like that, he was walking on it but toes curled to one side so I reshoed for another few days. Now his feet are perf
700

ect.
 
Humidity issues during incubation or hatch cause this problem. You can try to tape little triangle cutouts of a business card to the bottoms of its feet as if it were wearing snow shoes. Otherwise if it can walk and you don't feel comfortable doing that, just let it be and eat it when it gets bigger. They will usually get around just fine with a curled foot like that but sometimes they get sores on it so keep an eye. For more solutions on how to fix it search the BYC quail section for 'curled toes'
 
Humidity problems wouldn't cause them zipping in the middle towards the small end, would it? The humidity was the same as all my other hatches, the only difference is the new turner and some brief fluctuations in temp. I think it was because he zipped wrong that he stayed in the shell way too long, not humidity. The other three that zipped wrong didn't make it out at all but the ones that zipped right were out in the normal amount of time and fine.

I think I'm going to have to shoe him again. He's got the band aid flipped and still walking on his "ankle" joint. I may try the paper snowshoe idea. I was trying to keep it smaller but that didn't work.
 
I have had EXACTLY the same problem with one of my orp chicks but two and a half days solid in a shoe and some Nutridrops seem to have sorted her out. She started out with a twisted foot and looking hunchbacked and tipped forward with an s bend in her neck, caused by being glued in her egg for far too long. She has made a remarkable recovery in just three days and is now almost normal. She is not holding her head quite as high on her shoulders as her siblings but it is improving hourly and is already far better than I would have thought possible. The foot looks completely normal now, you would never know that it had been completely clawed and turned inwards and she couldn't walk on it.

So give your little one a boot and some time and you'll be amazed how well he will recover. I made my boot by cutting stiff cardboard to the shape of her other foot but with a 5mm long 'tab' at the back which I then folded up the back of her leg and used micropore dressing tape to secure it onto her foot and up her ankle. I made more than one as the first got wet and found that the second was a bit larger on the foot, made her look like she had a big duck foot and this gave her a greater walking surface and less chance of turning it in again. It's worked wonders!!
 
Usually zipping in the middle happens when you hand turn or don't turn often enough. Sometimes they just form that way I think, because even with my auto turners I get one that does it occasionally.

You're spot on, hanging up in the egg obviously will also cause those curled feet, when you start having several with curled toes, that is humidity.
 
My quail has the same problem! He is only 1 day old and has both feet are curled. I have tried to use masking tape to make some shoes, but he keeps wiggling out and he is so small I don't want to hurt him. He can still get around, but is really wobbly and can't stand up straight. His feet are so tiny! How can I make him some shoes?
 
Use the sticky ends of a bandaid: put one sticky end under the curled foot and position the toes as they should be. Fold the other sticky end over the top of the foot and stick it to the sticky end on the bottom. Press the sides together so that the toes don't move from the correct position. Carefully cut around the foot to leave only a little flipper shoe. Leave it on until it falls off naturally.

It's easiest to have another person hold the bird with the foot extended so that you can work without the bird squirming around.

You should do this today or the toes/joints will harden and you will have a crippled quail that will most likely need to be culled. Good luck!
 

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